I didn't want to link to my FB page with the pictures that go along with the content because it looked like it might be against the forum rules. It's not a business or making me any kind of money it's just a FB page, so if I can post the link so people can see the post related pictures let me know? Some of the posts are funnier with the pictures.
This is essentially a creative writing project based of a real thing I did. Spider Dome 2012 is real, but obviously the back stories and comments from the spiders are all the creative writing part.
I'll post the story so far, and add updates if people are interested. I'm curious of what people will think about it. So far the response has been good.
There are many ref's to "the FB page" this is from my mailing list of friends following it, but I did pull out the actual address.
-------------------------------------------
We are also happy to announce the Tagline for Spider Dome 2012:
Eight legs…Eight eyes…One Survivor…Spider Dome 2012
We encourage you to like us, tell your friends and submit your questions to our Facebook page.
Questions will be randomly selected and answered based on my desire to answer them.
Spider Dome 2012
Spider dome was a vision I had in 2010 or 2011. A simple idea really: Take a plastic critter cage, fill it with sticks and hiding places and seal off most of the holes (some need to be open to let air in.) Begin to collect bugs from around the yard, beetles, sow bugs, centipedes etc. Let them get nice and comfy and boom. Start to add the spiders: Ground spiders, daddy long legs, big bulbous bellied spiders that make intricate webs, wolf spiders, those spiders that make the long funnels in the woodpile. If it’s a spider, it goes into the Spider Dome. The diet will be supplemented with small crickets now and again, but the real draw, the actual goal, is to find the king of the backyard spiders. Many will enter, but there can be only one!
Who will survive? What will their prize be? Who knows. Freedom? Maybe. Maybe a house all to themselves where they are fed crickets until they live out their days in relative harmony...or until Spider Dome 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 1:
Spider Dome 2012 is underway. There have been 2 confirmed kills so far. They were both by a “Daring Jumping Spider” named Boris. The victims were both smaller sized “Common House Spiders”.
The “Daring Jumping Spider” is the only one of his kind in Spider Dome 2012, and heavily outnumbered by the “Common House Spiders” with 4 larger ones remaining. There has been no “talk” of retaliation, but “Common House Spiders” are not known for their words.
Surprisingly, the “Daddy Long Legs” remains alive though he maintains “I don’t belong here, I’m not looking for a fight” as he tries to form alliances. However, he is a spider and cannot be trusted. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his move. Keep an eye on this dainty dark horse as things start to heat up in Spider Dome 2012.
There can be only one!
After a deluge of questions and fan mail, I have decided to answer some common questions and provide some commonly sought information on Spider Dome 2012. Keep the questions coming.
Q: Don’t spiders help control the insect population? Isn’t taking them out of the wild a bad thing?
A: Yes, spiders do help control the insect population. Spider Dome is insect free. It’s awesome.
Q: Is it cruel to take these spiders out of the wild for your little game?
A: “The Wild” is a term used to glorify homelessness. These spiders were on the streets, sleeping in a new web every night, never knowing where there next meal was going to come from. Dodging birds and frogs, sweltering in the heat and dying of thirst in a drought, the life they lived was no life at all. Here at Spider Dome they have a dome over their head, a controlled climate, and a misting of water nightly. Would it be cruel to take a homless person "out of the wild" and give him an apartment? My logic is flawless. As far as the game comment, Spider Dome is no game, it is life and death. Mostly death.
Q: What if two different spiders mate and create a new deadly spider?
A: I would have a spider named after me, since I created it so it would be awesome. If you are going to have an animal named after you a deadly one would be best. “Another victim of Kavka’s Dome Spider: 42 year old John Smith was cleaning his basement when he was bitten. He died on his way to the hospital.” Boom! Name on then the news again, High five!”
A work in progress, here are some of the facts, rules and regulations of Spider Dome:
- All Spiders in Spider Dome combatants have signed a release.
- All Spider Dome competitors are convicted killers. There is not one participant in Spider Dome that has not committed murder.
- All Spider Dome participants are regularly tested and certified drug free.
- Counseling is available for all Spider Dome survivor.
- That last line was not a typo, it was supposed to say survivor. There can be only one!
Finally a clarification, we here at Spider Dome were just informed that PETA does not actually stand for “Please Eliminate The Arachnids” Who knew? Apparently they are a group dedicated to freeing cows and chickens from the tyranny of milk producing and egg laying and giving dogs and cats the right to vote. Needless to say they are NOT endorsing Spider Dome. I apologize for any confusion. Power to the pets! Yaddah yaddah and such,
Spider Dome 2012 Weekend update.
Thanks for your questions, please keep them coming and be sure to post them on the FB page, I’m tired of people coming up to me on the street and asking. I’m trying to live a normal life. Respect that.
Q: Were any spiders harmed in the making of Spider Dome?
A: Hell yeah they were, they are eating each other.
Q: This is inhumane.
A: Ok, first of all that’s a statement not a question. Secondly, these are spiders not humans, so how could it be inhumane? Pfft. You’re stupid.
Q: Why Spider Dome?
A: Beetle Dome was boring. Scorpion Dome was painful. Kitten Dome was impractical and cute. I kept taking the combatants out to cuddle with them.
Q: Are these bouts sanctioned by the any governing body?
A: It is overseen by the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission. They have recently exerted influence over Spider Dome, see update below.
Q: It is rumored that Boris the Spider is dead because he appears barefoot on the Abby Road album cover, and if you play Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”. Backward you can hear “Boris is dead.”
A: You cannot believe everything you read on the internet unless it’s on Spider Dome’s official Facebook Page.
Over the weekend the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission ruled in favor of Ernie’s (the tanks only Daddy Long Legs) appeal to add more Daddy Long Legs to Spider Dome 2012. He argued it was unfair to have 9 House Spiders and only one DLL. The well documented feud between the two gangs (known on the streets as “The Bulbs” and “The Sticks”) has raged for millions of years. In 24,921 BC a treaty was signed between the two warring factions giving the ground to the Daddy Long Legs and the trees and bushes to the House Spiders. Tensions have remained low with a few notable flare ups (Most recently the 1979 Montrose, PA blood bath, where 12,000 spiders lost their lives over two weeks of battle.) Beside these significant albeit scant confrontations, the interactions between the two factions have been mostly relegated to hurling insults.
“We’re going to dominate.” Ernie said “It’s been 9 on 1 and they haven’t taken me down, when 3 of my “Sticks” get in here, it’s going to be on.”
When asked about Ernie’s comments, Bulbs leader Beauregard took it lightly. “We didn’t want to break his pretty little legs.”
“The problem,” Ernie said “is that they will need to leave their web to do that. We all know that without their webs, Bulbs are &!%@#.”
Will the two just talk smack, or go on the attack? Only time will separate the words from webs and verbiage from venom. Stay tuned to Spider Dome 2012!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember to post your questions and comments on the FB page, thanks for your support. Unless you’re not supporting Spider Dome, then I take it back.
“The Sticks” failed to make an impact in their joining Spider Dome. Ernie, leader of “The Sticks” was not available for comment. Cheech, our resident Grass Spider was more than willing to talk about the lack of impact generated by their entrance into Spider Dome. “What did you expect? They are Daddy Long Legs, of course they went crying to the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission for back up. When was the last time you saw a Daddy Long Legs standing over his kill? Trick question, you never have. These are spiders known for being picked up by children and pointing “To the cows.” If they could hunt worth a damn would they be the only spider standing in the line for free government fleas? The only spider here I’m worried about is Boris. If the PSAC wants to be useful they should test him. He isn’t natural, daring and jumping like he does.”
When reminded that all combatants have been tested prior to being placed in Spider Dome 2012 Cheech made a startling revelation. “You think we can’t get things on the inside? You two leggers are so naïve! You think this dome is a prison? One tap on this webbing and any cricket on the outside I want dead gets dead. Anything we get out there we get in here. Larva, beetles, aphids, ants, flies, you name it. You see that egg sac in the corner? That’s right, we get women in here too. Look at the crazy ass webs those Bulbs are spinning, you think they’re sober? Nah man, they had them some Devils Silk. That’s cool though, sooner or later one of them is going to fall from their web into mine. Then we’ll see who knows how to party.
We asked Cheech if he thought the missing Boris was off getting high. “Nah man, Boris is on the juice. I mean, we’re spiders, we’re all on the juice <laughs> but I mean he’s shooting the stuff in his anal tubercle.” We asked Cheech if he ever used performance enhancing drugs in the past. “Nah, that crap shrinks your cephalothorax bro. Cheech is all natural.”
We asked Cheech directly about the rumors Boris was dead and he had this to say. “Boris’s greatest trick is convincing the world he doesn’t exist. He’s alive, and he’s going to strike soon.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stick on Stick violence rocks Spider Dome.
Apparently, the Sticks are not as close knit of a group as once thought. The group of four consisting of two brown and two grey DDL’s failed to make a splash on their entrance, but did over the weekend, just not in the way we might have expected. Ernie and the other brown DDL Bertrude devoured the two grey’s. Beauregard, leader of “The Bulbs” was not surprised. “They couldn’t touch us, that resulted in a lot of fear and anger. They took it out on each other. Who else are they going to pick on? Dead flies? The pieces of bark on the dome floor? They got nothing, apparently, not even each other. Some gang.”
Ernie the Leader of “The Sticks” was open about the attack. “The Sticks are built on respect, The greys didn’t have it. They are commonly found around houses. Browns are straight out da wood. We don’t play. They came in with all these ideals about making peace and getting along. They didn’t get it, they weren’t Sticks, they weren’t nothing… except delicious. Beauregard can say whatever he wants. The Bulbs have been killing their own since the start. We’re that hardcore too. I don’t think he believed we would go there. We did. For all his mouthing off, he hasn’t said $&!# to my face since day one. Eventually he’s going to run out of little Bulbs to eat. Eventually he’s going to come down from his ivory tower on his silky little web and play. He talks a lot, but I think it’s like whistling in a graveyard.”
When we informed him of Ernie’s comments, we saw the first glimpse of Beauregard losing his cool. “I’ll be whistling through the graveyard alright. Whistling right up to Ernie’s grave. I’m going to silk all over it!” With that the interview ended as a visibly enraged Beauregard hoisted himself back to the top of the dome. Sources close to the Bulbs have promised a “statement” is imminent, but “it won’t be with words.”
****************************
Sorry for the diff fonts and colors, it was cut and pasted. This only goes from like 7/1 to 7/10 if anyone enjoys this and it's cool, I can post more. Thanks for reading!
This is essentially a creative writing project based of a real thing I did. Spider Dome 2012 is real, but obviously the back stories and comments from the spiders are all the creative writing part.
I'll post the story so far, and add updates if people are interested. I'm curious of what people will think about it. So far the response has been good.
There are many ref's to "the FB page" this is from my mailing list of friends following it, but I did pull out the actual address.
-------------------------------------------
We are also happy to announce the Tagline for Spider Dome 2012:
Eight legs…Eight eyes…One Survivor…Spider Dome 2012
We encourage you to like us, tell your friends and submit your questions to our Facebook page.
Questions will be randomly selected and answered based on my desire to answer them.
Spider Dome 2012
Spider dome was a vision I had in 2010 or 2011. A simple idea really: Take a plastic critter cage, fill it with sticks and hiding places and seal off most of the holes (some need to be open to let air in.) Begin to collect bugs from around the yard, beetles, sow bugs, centipedes etc. Let them get nice and comfy and boom. Start to add the spiders: Ground spiders, daddy long legs, big bulbous bellied spiders that make intricate webs, wolf spiders, those spiders that make the long funnels in the woodpile. If it’s a spider, it goes into the Spider Dome. The diet will be supplemented with small crickets now and again, but the real draw, the actual goal, is to find the king of the backyard spiders. Many will enter, but there can be only one!
Who will survive? What will their prize be? Who knows. Freedom? Maybe. Maybe a house all to themselves where they are fed crickets until they live out their days in relative harmony...or until Spider Dome 2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 1:
Spider Dome 2012 is underway. There have been 2 confirmed kills so far. They were both by a “Daring Jumping Spider” named Boris. The victims were both smaller sized “Common House Spiders”.
The “Daring Jumping Spider” is the only one of his kind in Spider Dome 2012, and heavily outnumbered by the “Common House Spiders” with 4 larger ones remaining. There has been no “talk” of retaliation, but “Common House Spiders” are not known for their words.
Surprisingly, the “Daddy Long Legs” remains alive though he maintains “I don’t belong here, I’m not looking for a fight” as he tries to form alliances. However, he is a spider and cannot be trusted. It’s only a matter of time before he makes his move. Keep an eye on this dainty dark horse as things start to heat up in Spider Dome 2012.
There can be only one!
After a deluge of questions and fan mail, I have decided to answer some common questions and provide some commonly sought information on Spider Dome 2012. Keep the questions coming.
Q: Don’t spiders help control the insect population? Isn’t taking them out of the wild a bad thing?
A: Yes, spiders do help control the insect population. Spider Dome is insect free. It’s awesome.
Q: Is it cruel to take these spiders out of the wild for your little game?
A: “The Wild” is a term used to glorify homelessness. These spiders were on the streets, sleeping in a new web every night, never knowing where there next meal was going to come from. Dodging birds and frogs, sweltering in the heat and dying of thirst in a drought, the life they lived was no life at all. Here at Spider Dome they have a dome over their head, a controlled climate, and a misting of water nightly. Would it be cruel to take a homless person "out of the wild" and give him an apartment? My logic is flawless. As far as the game comment, Spider Dome is no game, it is life and death. Mostly death.
Q: What if two different spiders mate and create a new deadly spider?
A: I would have a spider named after me, since I created it so it would be awesome. If you are going to have an animal named after you a deadly one would be best. “Another victim of Kavka’s Dome Spider: 42 year old John Smith was cleaning his basement when he was bitten. He died on his way to the hospital.” Boom! Name on then the news again, High five!”
A work in progress, here are some of the facts, rules and regulations of Spider Dome:
- All Spiders in Spider Dome combatants have signed a release.
- All Spider Dome competitors are convicted killers. There is not one participant in Spider Dome that has not committed murder.
- All Spider Dome participants are regularly tested and certified drug free.
- Counseling is available for all Spider Dome survivor.
- That last line was not a typo, it was supposed to say survivor. There can be only one!
Finally a clarification, we here at Spider Dome were just informed that PETA does not actually stand for “Please Eliminate The Arachnids” Who knew? Apparently they are a group dedicated to freeing cows and chickens from the tyranny of milk producing and egg laying and giving dogs and cats the right to vote. Needless to say they are NOT endorsing Spider Dome. I apologize for any confusion. Power to the pets! Yaddah yaddah and such,
Spider Dome 2012 Weekend update.
Thanks for your questions, please keep them coming and be sure to post them on the FB page, I’m tired of people coming up to me on the street and asking. I’m trying to live a normal life. Respect that.
Q: Were any spiders harmed in the making of Spider Dome?
A: Hell yeah they were, they are eating each other.
Q: This is inhumane.
A: Ok, first of all that’s a statement not a question. Secondly, these are spiders not humans, so how could it be inhumane? Pfft. You’re stupid.
Q: Why Spider Dome?
A: Beetle Dome was boring. Scorpion Dome was painful. Kitten Dome was impractical and cute. I kept taking the combatants out to cuddle with them.
Q: Are these bouts sanctioned by the any governing body?
A: It is overseen by the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission. They have recently exerted influence over Spider Dome, see update below.
Q: It is rumored that Boris the Spider is dead because he appears barefoot on the Abby Road album cover, and if you play Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”. Backward you can hear “Boris is dead.”
A: You cannot believe everything you read on the internet unless it’s on Spider Dome’s official Facebook Page.
Over the weekend the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission ruled in favor of Ernie’s (the tanks only Daddy Long Legs) appeal to add more Daddy Long Legs to Spider Dome 2012. He argued it was unfair to have 9 House Spiders and only one DLL. The well documented feud between the two gangs (known on the streets as “The Bulbs” and “The Sticks”) has raged for millions of years. In 24,921 BC a treaty was signed between the two warring factions giving the ground to the Daddy Long Legs and the trees and bushes to the House Spiders. Tensions have remained low with a few notable flare ups (Most recently the 1979 Montrose, PA blood bath, where 12,000 spiders lost their lives over two weeks of battle.) Beside these significant albeit scant confrontations, the interactions between the two factions have been mostly relegated to hurling insults.
“We’re going to dominate.” Ernie said “It’s been 9 on 1 and they haven’t taken me down, when 3 of my “Sticks” get in here, it’s going to be on.”
When asked about Ernie’s comments, Bulbs leader Beauregard took it lightly. “We didn’t want to break his pretty little legs.”
“The problem,” Ernie said “is that they will need to leave their web to do that. We all know that without their webs, Bulbs are &!%@#.”
Will the two just talk smack, or go on the attack? Only time will separate the words from webs and verbiage from venom. Stay tuned to Spider Dome 2012!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remember to post your questions and comments on the FB page, thanks for your support. Unless you’re not supporting Spider Dome, then I take it back.
“The Sticks” failed to make an impact in their joining Spider Dome. Ernie, leader of “The Sticks” was not available for comment. Cheech, our resident Grass Spider was more than willing to talk about the lack of impact generated by their entrance into Spider Dome. “What did you expect? They are Daddy Long Legs, of course they went crying to the Pennsylvania State Arachnidthletic Commission for back up. When was the last time you saw a Daddy Long Legs standing over his kill? Trick question, you never have. These are spiders known for being picked up by children and pointing “To the cows.” If they could hunt worth a damn would they be the only spider standing in the line for free government fleas? The only spider here I’m worried about is Boris. If the PSAC wants to be useful they should test him. He isn’t natural, daring and jumping like he does.”
When reminded that all combatants have been tested prior to being placed in Spider Dome 2012 Cheech made a startling revelation. “You think we can’t get things on the inside? You two leggers are so naïve! You think this dome is a prison? One tap on this webbing and any cricket on the outside I want dead gets dead. Anything we get out there we get in here. Larva, beetles, aphids, ants, flies, you name it. You see that egg sac in the corner? That’s right, we get women in here too. Look at the crazy ass webs those Bulbs are spinning, you think they’re sober? Nah man, they had them some Devils Silk. That’s cool though, sooner or later one of them is going to fall from their web into mine. Then we’ll see who knows how to party.
We asked Cheech if he thought the missing Boris was off getting high. “Nah man, Boris is on the juice. I mean, we’re spiders, we’re all on the juice <laughs> but I mean he’s shooting the stuff in his anal tubercle.” We asked Cheech if he ever used performance enhancing drugs in the past. “Nah, that crap shrinks your cephalothorax bro. Cheech is all natural.”
We asked Cheech directly about the rumors Boris was dead and he had this to say. “Boris’s greatest trick is convincing the world he doesn’t exist. He’s alive, and he’s going to strike soon.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stick on Stick violence rocks Spider Dome.
Apparently, the Sticks are not as close knit of a group as once thought. The group of four consisting of two brown and two grey DDL’s failed to make a splash on their entrance, but did over the weekend, just not in the way we might have expected. Ernie and the other brown DDL Bertrude devoured the two grey’s. Beauregard, leader of “The Bulbs” was not surprised. “They couldn’t touch us, that resulted in a lot of fear and anger. They took it out on each other. Who else are they going to pick on? Dead flies? The pieces of bark on the dome floor? They got nothing, apparently, not even each other. Some gang.”
Ernie the Leader of “The Sticks” was open about the attack. “The Sticks are built on respect, The greys didn’t have it. They are commonly found around houses. Browns are straight out da wood. We don’t play. They came in with all these ideals about making peace and getting along. They didn’t get it, they weren’t Sticks, they weren’t nothing… except delicious. Beauregard can say whatever he wants. The Bulbs have been killing their own since the start. We’re that hardcore too. I don’t think he believed we would go there. We did. For all his mouthing off, he hasn’t said $&!# to my face since day one. Eventually he’s going to run out of little Bulbs to eat. Eventually he’s going to come down from his ivory tower on his silky little web and play. He talks a lot, but I think it’s like whistling in a graveyard.”
When we informed him of Ernie’s comments, we saw the first glimpse of Beauregard losing his cool. “I’ll be whistling through the graveyard alright. Whistling right up to Ernie’s grave. I’m going to silk all over it!” With that the interview ended as a visibly enraged Beauregard hoisted himself back to the top of the dome. Sources close to the Bulbs have promised a “statement” is imminent, but “it won’t be with words.”
****************************
Sorry for the diff fonts and colors, it was cut and pasted. This only goes from like 7/1 to 7/10 if anyone enjoys this and it's cool, I can post more. Thanks for reading!
